Unbound
by The Eternal Noob
Summary: A series of incidents in Fukuoka send Tsuzuki and Hisoka prematurely back to work. Hisoka struggles to understand his own sexuality, Tsuzuki struggles with his own lack of self-worth, and two families are torn apart by one man's secret.
1. Origins

Prologue

Origins

The day he proposed to his girlfriend, Maruyama Juro, at that time a college student at Fukuoka University, killed a ten year old girl.

It was a hot, muggy day in late July when it happened. The city of Fukuoka had sank into its traditional stupor for the heat of summer. Salarimen discarded their suit jackets for white dress shirts that quickly became soaked with sweat under the arms and down the back. Children ran wild, all gangly and bare-limbed, catching frogs to throw down each other's shirts. They were often cruel to the little creatures, caught in the self-absorbed indifference of youth. It wasn't unusual to see frogs lying helpless on baking-hot concrete walls, divested of their limbs but still alive, bulbous eyes blinking in accusation. Some children were more imaginative than most, cutting off only the front limbs to see how the animal fared or jamming push-pins through their jaws to keep them from eating. Others were more charitable. Ojima Aiko was one of these.

"Leave them alone!" she demanded, bodily shoving two of her neighbors away from the wall where they'd been tormenting their catch. "Don't hurt him! What is WRONG with you?!"

"It's funny!" one of them, a fresh-faced eleven year old, retorted. "Can't you take a joke?"

"Joke? You think that's a _joke?"_ Aiko snorted, scooping up the frog protectively. "You're stupid."

With that, the little girl turned and stalked off, planning to bring the frog to a nearby park where she could let it go. As a parting shot one of the kids she'd just shoved yelled "No, YOU'RE stupid" back at her as she was leaving, but she rolled her eyes and ignored it. The sun beat down as she walked, glaringly bright. She could feel sweat dripping down her face and legs. Inside her cupped palms, the frog was making occasional attempts to escape.

"Hey, calm down," she told it, feeling maternal, "You're gonna be fine."

Her neighborhood's streets were deserted, its residents driven inside by the heat and humidity. All along the street, windows had been thrown open in a futile attempt to let in the nonexistant breeze, but aside from that the area was a model of inactivity. There was something about the heavy air that leeched the energy from everyone's bones. When Aiko had wandered outside to play, even her mother had been slumped on the couch, glued to some daytime TV show.

No doubt she would never have imagined that three days later, her daughter's dismembered left hand would wash up on the shores at the edge of the city, or that law enforcement would be scouring the coasts for days afterward trying to find more body parts. She would not have imagined that the case would quickly slip into the realm of obscurity without ever being solved, or that no one would ever find anything other than that one tiny, partially decomposed hand to bury. She would not have predicted that she'd spend days afterward sitting silently in her daughter's room, on her daughter's unmade bed, feeling a silent condemnation from every toy, every piece of clothing, every drawing, every piece of schoolwork Aiko had slaved over. _Why didn't you keep a closer eye on her? How could you let this happen? _She would not have imagined that her marriage would fall apart soon afterward, or that she'd have to spend years on antidepressants before finally remarrying at the spinsterly age of fifty.

So Aiko continued to walk, unwittingly, towards her doom. It was nearing lunchtime, and she could smell the scent of domburi and ramen noodles drifting through the open windows. Once in awhile another soul would meander past her on the sidewalk- a little girl in schoolkid's red cap whom Aiko recognized as one of her neighbors, an older boy who pedaled his bicyce towards the convenience store with a pensive look on his face. Neither of them appeared to take note of her, and she spared little more than a glance for either of them.

The park was five blocks away- one left, one right, straight ahead, one right, one left, down a few steps, and the concrete walkway opened up into a small partially wooded area, bordered on all sides by the stone yards of different courtyards and containing a single slide and swingset. The neighborhood children normally neglected these in their play, favoring instead the dark corners and dappled shadows that lent themselves perfectly to games of streetwide hide-and-seek. For others, it happened to be a convenient quiet spot to sit and think away from other people.

Because of this, Aiko hardly took notice of the sullen college student sitting on one of the swings. Instead, she marched right past him into a grove of trees that she knew housed a small, muddy pool that was often frequented by the neighborhood frogs. "There, see?" she told the little creature as she knelt down, shifting to keep her sneakers from sinking too far into the squalid ground, and opened her hands. "This is way better, isn't it?"

She jumped when she turned around and saw the man from the swing standing directly in her path. "Oh, I-" she started uncertainly, "I didn't-" _know you were there, _she was going to say, but the man had lunged and closed his hands around her throat before the word could come out. Her eyes bulged. She clawed at the man's hands. Her legs skidded out from under her, leaving her on her bottom, kicking like a spastic in the mud. Her dry lips drew back until they cracked and dribbled blood down her cheeks. The man slammed her head into the ground in a maddened craze. She shoved mud in his face. He slammed her down so hard her vision blurred. Her face contorted. He didn't relent. Bile rose in her throat, but didn't come out because of the pressure from his hands. She gagged. Her vision was blotted out. The strength faded from her limbs. Her head spun, and she felt strangely detached, as though she wasn't truly present for the violence that was still occurring.

Finally, she lost consciousness.

As the girl's body went slack, Juro allowed his head to fall forwards, gasping from exertion. Mud was all over him, soaked through his pants, stuck to his teeth, and smeared all over his arms. Sweat was dripping from his shirt. All the same, a huge grin split his face as his head hung down between his shoulders. He could have laughed out loud in glee; this was just what he'd needed, this release. He felt like a spring wound too tight most of the time, an automaton that moved through society performing the actions he was prescribed to do but never truly fulfilled by any of it. He never had any close friends as a child, simply because he didn't understand the point of having one. At home, his mother was a bitter shell of a woman, thin as a stick, who alternated between reclusiveness and the kind of promiscuity that meant a new man brought home every few weeks. Her moods fluctuated wildly; some days she'd dress in her finest and shower her son with compliments, but on others she'd scream wildly, hit him, and pull his hair until he locked her in the house and stormed out to the shed.

It had been Juro's favorite haunt ever since he was thirteen years old, when he'd run out of the house to hide there during one of his mother's drunken tirades. It wasn't anything special, just a little three by three meter long space lined with shelves and pegboards, which held tools and miscellaneous things that had somehow accumulated there over the years. It had no power, but Juro had brought in a battery-powered lantern, and an extra futon which Juro had begun to use more and more over the years. Not for the past six months, though, because a female classmate, had found out about his living conditions, been suitably horrified, and convinced her parents to allow him to sleep in the family's spare room, at the opposite end of the house from her. Nonetheless, Juro had continued to visit the shed often, especially when he wanted to be alone, which was often.

Now, Juro looked at the anonymous girl whose body was still pliant and warm, and felt something stir deep within him. She was beautiful, he thought. The little red shorts she was wearing brought out the pinkness of her skin, the rosy flush of her cheeks under long, dark eyelashes. Her face was the sort that ought to be used to sell laundry detergent, round and soft without the faintest hint of a blemish. Her eyes, open and glassy, formed perfect almond shapes that were unusually large and endearing, seeming to carry a dozen unspoken promises in their depths. On impulse he hugged her body close, squeezing those shapely limbs bruisingly tight, as though pressure alone could make their bodies one, allow him to carry that stunning beauty with himself forever. Leaning down, he kissed one of the trails of blood that had trickled from her split lips, opening his mouth to lick at them, pressing his nose against her cheek.

He sat there for awhile, cuddling the dead child, until a shout from his mother brought him out of his reverie. He didn't answer- he never did, anymore- but it reminded him that the hour was getting late and _something _was going to have to be done with the girl's body. It was a terrible shame to have to let her go this quickly, but he couldn't risk keeping the body in the shed too long. But, luckily, he'd done this before. Regrettable as it was, the task of disposal didn't scare him.

But before he started, Juro snuck into the house to steal mother's camera, using it to snap pictures of the girl's body in different poses until the film ran out. He replaced the camera, and removed the film, hiding it under a bag of tools. Perhaps, once the freshness of memory had begun to fade, he'd find a way to develop it. At last he grabbed a tarp that had been rolled up in the back of the shed, spread it out on the floor, and lifted the dead girl onto the waterproof surface. Rigor mortis had not yet begun to set in, allowing her frame to flop like a puppet that had lost its moorings. There was always an axe kept in the corner in case it was needed, and he grabbed this now, striding back to stand above the crumpled heap on the ground. He raised it up over his head.

If she was beautiful before, she was even more beautiful then, when she came apart in a flower of flesh and blood.

***

Sachiko squeezed her eyes shut, leaning back and resting her head on the edge of the furo. It was about time for her to get out and get dressed for an evening out with her boyfriend, but her head seemed heavy and it felt as though a dragon was rhythmically beating a sledgehammer against the insides of her skull. She'd already taken twice the dose of painkiller that she normally took for headaches, but it seemed they had yet to kick in. Hopefully, they would before she had to leave; although the pain was dreadful, she would never consider canceling a big date on her boyfriend at the last second.

His mother probably would, she thought with a hint of bitterness. That is, if she ever tried to do anything with him in the first place. Unforgivable, that's what it was. What kind of mother could possibly allow her own selfish alcohol problem to affect her children like that? Her own mother, she knew, had made wrenching sacrifices in order to raise her children. Miyagi Rika was only seventeen years old when she married Sachiko's father, Noburu, giving up her job and financial independence in order to raise Sachiko and her two siblings. Every day, she arose before the sun or anyone else to get breakfast started. From then on, she seemed to be caught in a whirlwind of constant activity, cooking, cleaning, sewing, accounting, and a bevy of other tasks that came with being the female of the household. Yet, Sachiko had never once seen her complain.

"Exactly the way a woman should be," one of her uncles said approvingly. "You'd do well to remember what she has to teach you, Sachiko-chan."

Which she was trying to do. Opening her eyes, she found that they'd adjusted quite well to the dark of the bathroom; she hadn't turned the lights on because they made her headache worse. Delaying any longer would make her run the risk of being late or of having to go out without being completely ready. So she stood up slowly, dripping water, struggling to keep the change in position from aggravating the pain in her head.

"Ohhhh..."

Gingerly, she stepped out of the tub, dried off, and tugged her clothes on. Though she wouldn't put it on until she was completely dried off, for the moment opting for sweatpants and a t-shirt, she hoped a relatively formal Western-style dress that reached her calves would be good enough for the occasion: Dinner at an upscale restaurant in the downtown Tenjin district, and dancing a few blocks away immediately afterwards. There was extra ibuprofen in her purse already; she'd put them there directly before getting in the bath, thinking to the evening ahead of her and hoping that they would be enough to get her through the night. Maybe Juro would get bored early on, she thought tiredly, before mentally scolding herself for ingratitude.

The last of the water drained out of the tub with a gurgle, prompting her to grab a spray bottle of cleaning solution and a scrub brush. Holding her breath until she could feel her heartbeat pounding in her head so as to not inhale any cleaner, she quickly scrubbed the appliance to a sanitary shine, then hurriedly did a scan of the rest of the bathroom, cleaning here and there where she saw spots of dirt. After finishing- the entire session had lasted less than fifteen minutes- she replaced the cleaning supplies and wandered back to her room to lie down for another twenty, and take some more pain medication before it came time for her to get dressed.

Once those minutes had passed, luckily, the medication had started to kick in, and it was easy for Sachiko to get up. Still in the dark, she divested herself briskly of her clothes and stepped into her dress. Looking down in order to pull it up, she was suddenly struck by the awkwardness of her own body, with the narrow, bony protrusions of her ribs and hips set above cotton underwear. She looked young, which was good, but she had no figure at _all_, which was not. It wasn't as though people seemed to consider her unattractive, but she couldn't understand what Juro saw in her. There were plenty of other girls with better figures, and much better personalities. The zipper snagged on her bra as she was tugging it up, forcing her to stop and fiddle with the back of the teal blue affair for several minutes before getting it fixed and sitting down to style her hair.

"Sachiko!" Her mother shouted up the stairs several minutes later, as she was inserting a long, decorative pearl hairpin into the back of her bun.

"Coming!" She answered, hurrying out of the room and down the hall. Her boyfriend stood in the entry, clad scruffily in a suit with his hair evidently combed, but still windswept.

"Sachiko-san!" He exclaimed as soon as he saw her, a sunny grin splitting open his face. "You look beautiful!"

"Thank you," she responded, glowing with appreciation. "You don't think the color's too flat, do you?"

Her boyfriend snorted, putting an arm around her waist and tugging her towards him. "Of course not! I think it matches your complexion excellently." He pressed a kiss against the top of her head.

Sachiko pulled away, laughing, but threaded his fingers through hers. Juro had always been much more emotionally demonstrative with her than she'd seen him with anyone else, and although it had taken some getting used to, she now found it flattering, and comfortable. Most of her relatively conservative family, on the other hand, looked rather disapprovingly upon anything resembling a public display of affection. Of course, Sachiko also suspected that if they had their way, Juro would speak to her only in Morse code, from the other side of Japan, about the weather.

"Stop it!" she protested half-heartedly. "My dad'll kick you halfway to China if he sees you."

"Oh?" Juro winked. "Then I suppose I'll have to work on my swimming skills- AH!" With a speed rivaling that of the Shinkansen, he straightened up and stepped away from his girlfriend as her mother came back into the hallway. "Good afternoon, Miyagi-sensei! The weather's nice today, isn't it?"

"It's not as bad as it has been," Sachiko's mother agreed, "But it's still way too hot. Make sure you two aren't outside too much, and drink lots of water. Sachiko-chan, I'm going to be out of the house at a neighborhood association meeting for the next couple of hours, but if you need anything, I'll have my phone with me. I know you haven't been feeling well, so remember to take your pain medication regularly, and come straight home if you start having vision problems or feeling lightheaded."

Sachiko groaned. "Okaasan, I've been in college for a year now. You don't need to look after me."

"Of course I do, Sachiko-chan, you're my daughter. I can't help it." Miyagi-san smiled affectionately at her second oldest child. Then, to Juro, "Take care of her. Don't push anything."

"Of course not, Miyagi-sensei. I love her." Juro bowed, deeply enough that Sachiko's mother couldn't see the way his lips thinned ever so slightly- but Sachiko could, and mentally willed her mother to let them leave without saying anything more. Her boyfriend was never anything but scrupulously polite to her family, but she knew Miyagi Rika's mother hen demeanor bothered him. He would never admit it, always arguing in her mother's favor, but there were some things that Sachiko could just tell...

Luckily, the woman was satisfied, having seen Juro around enough to have begun (though she'd never admit it) to trust him with her daughter. "All right, then. Don't get home too late, Sa-chan."

"I won't."

"So," said Jurō with a puckish grin, "Shall we?"

"Of course," she replied, daintily taking his arm and stepping into her shoes. He tenderly took her other hand and pressed it gently to his lips, gaze lingering on hers. Almost imperceptibly, he reached back and opened the door, releasing her hand and putting his arm around her waist to guide them both out. Sachiko blinked owlishly as they emerged into the open sunlight, but the headache remained at bay, for which she was incomparably grateful. The seagoing breeze ruffled her hair, swept through her clothes, as Juro gallantly swung open the front passenger door of his little Toyota with a small flourish. His car had been a stroke of luck; several months earlier, he'd told her about the lady that was selling him the barely used vehicle for almost nothing while they'd been chatting outside the Law department at the university. A week later, and he showed up on her doorstep driving it.

Of course, gas was expensive, so it wasn't often that they could go out in it. Besides which, the roadways were always incredibly crowded, so the two still got around town mainly by way of the well maintained pedestrian routes and public transportation. Today, however, was special; their third year dating anniversary. So, it seemed Juro had ponied up the gas. Sachiko made a mental note to find a way to pay him back somehow.

"So," Juro asked with a cheery exhalation as they pulled out of the driveway, "How are you?"

Sachiko rolled the car window a third of the way down, leaning back comfortably in her seat. She smiled playfully at her boyfriend, gazing leisurely in his direction. "I'm great! My test results from last term just came in- straight fives across the board. I'm so glad- I swear, I was sweating _blood _and sleeping two hours a day by the time finals came."

When Juro didn't respond for a moment, Sachiko shot a quizzical glance at him. Seeming to notice her unspoken question, he let out a lingering sigh, fingertips tracing small circles on the steering wheel. "That's... great, Sachiko-chan. Really great. I didn't do so well, though... two ones. I found out this morning."

Sachiko's jaw fell open in dismay. "Oh, I'm... I'm so sorry." Squeezing his shoulder, she tried to find something consoling to say. "You know, I'm sure it's a fluke. You've got to be one of the smartest people I kn0w- and it's not like you're the first person to have something like that happen to them."

Jurō shrugged. He still looked like he was brooding, but not like he was about to collapse in fury or despair, which relieved his girlfriend. "I guess not. And I can always make them up, ne? I had some time to think about it earlier, and I think I know what I did wrong. Studied for the wrong areas. Besides, I had some time to work out, and it brought me time to get over it."

His girlfriend smiled encouragingly. "That's the spirit."

Predictably, the two got stuck in traffic. Jurō grumbled half-heartedly over the steering wheel, but turned and struck up a conversation with Sachiko about recent developments in a televised drama they'd both been watching. It seemed that one of the male leads had found himself a girlfriend whom he worshipped like a goddess, but she'd been two-timing him on the side; during the last episode, he'd dramatically uncovered her deception in front of the entire cast. Before long they were both laughing, as the traffic slowly but steadily allowed them to move west.

Canal City was a short distance from Kokutai Road, one of Hakata-ku's main arteries. Stylish, glamorous, and in some ways utterly confusing, it had been built a few years ago by some young American with a fascination for spirals. Tall, garishly painted buildings curved around in a semicircle around a twisted walkway, towering over visitors to the point of shutting out the outside world. Sachiko had fallen in love with its unselfconscious pretension the first time she came there, but since it was so far away, she hardly went there or mentioned it. Jurō must have asked one of her acquaintances for advice while he was deciding where to take her.

She squeezed his hand as they walked along the canal, conscious of the throngs of people that surrounded them.

"You know, I love the way the city looks at night." she sighed, a silly grin coming to her face as she hugged Juro's arm impulsively.

"It sure is," he agreed, loosely putting his arm around her shoulders.

She tilted her head back, enjoying the silky sweep of her hair across her shoulderblades. "I could almost walk around here all night, you know?"

A faint line appeared between her boyfriend's brows. "Please, don't. It's not safe."

"Oh, come on, how low's our crime rate again?" Sachiko rolled her eyes, throwing him a playful smirk. "Besides, I'll just take you along. You'd scare away any psychopaths."

"I _would_, would I?" He asked dryly, then seemed to trail off. To their left, a department store rose up above them, streetlights glinting off of surfaces that looked like polished obsidian. Sachiko fell quiet as her eyes followed his gaze.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Juro nodded silently.

They drove up to the bay after dinner. Sachiko rolled down the window and stuck her head halfway out, tasting the tang of salt in the air. It was dark by that time, but the city continued to glow around them, lit up by countless electric lights. The woman had noticed a long time ago that if she could see into one of these lit windows, the rooms beyond would always be visible in unnatural detail, appearing like meticulously detailed miniatures complete with tiny replicas of people who never became aware of her eyes as they went about their business. It always gave her a thrill to spy on them for a few short seconds while she was passing by, though she never saw anything more interesting than salarymen reading magazines on the job.

Even the bay, one of Kyushu's main shipping areas, did not remain completely impervious to the city's nightlife. Out on the water, Sachiko could see several ships, at this time of night visible as little more than moving clusters of lights, maneuvering their way west. Jurō parked the car in a lot overlooking the beach, and they stood together, facing the ancient, black, rippling expanse that had provided the lifeblood for the development of their home city. It was here that their ancestors had fished and traded with the Koreans and Chinese of old; it was here that in the 1200s, the great Kublai Khan's mighty fleet had been repelled, not once, but twice, by the only typhoons to ever hit the Sea of Genkai in recorded history. No such divine wind was brewing that night, but there was a pleasant breeze blowing in from the sea that kept the heat from being too oppressive. Sachiko leaned against the hood of the car, wrapped in a velvety sense of contentment, and pulled her boyfriend against her. Under his clothes, his body was hard, and she felt calluses on his hands as she threaded his fingers through her own.

"Aah..." His voice, set low in his throat, was husky, and his stubble ticked her temple as he spoke. "It's something, isn't it?"

She nodded simply. There was no need for words.

"But you know," he said softly, "I know of something far more beautiful, and she lives much closer to me than Lord Susano'o ever has."

The breath caught in her throat. She couldn't speak. He reached up and brushed the pads of his fingers over her face, her hair, sliding down to rest over the nape of her neck.

"Sachiko-san," he breathed, hands gripping her shoulders with unconscious strength, "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she whispered, "Yes." A thousand times over.

***

Below them, the sea roiled. It was the lifeblood of those first ones who arrived in Fukuoka's bay before settling the rest of the tiny island nation. At the mercy of the inscrutable waves, the early ones had paid their tribute well. Earlier that day, Sachiko's beloved had turned in his own taxes, throwing the young girl into the sea, shrouded in granite and burlap. Yet, it seemed that the offering had not been properly secured. Jurō, anxious as he was to make sure the body could not work its way up from the bottom of the ocean, had in the end put more ballast than body in his sack; ironically, the rough-hewn edges of the rock he used cut into that bag, enough to allow a part to slip free. As Sachiko held her love, a child's hand danced on the waves, tossed mournfully about until a sudden wave threw it onto an outcropping of rocks. It lay there limply, tiny fingers stretched out in an easterly direction, until bugs landed on it and began to breed.

It was lucky, that it was discovered the next morning, before it could be eaten away.


	2. The Boy

**Unbound**

The Boy

"She bid me take love easy,

As the grass grows on the weirs.

But I, being young and foolish,

With her, I did not agree."

_Ten years later_

_

* * *

_

_"For many years I claimed that I could remember things seen at the time of my own birth. Whenever I said so, the grownups would laugh at first, but then, wondering if they were not being tricked, stared distastefully at the pallid face of that unchildlike child."_

5:32 p.m.

The red lines that made up the characters on Hisoka's digital clock glowed dully at him across the room, the only glimpse of color that made its way through the dull, grey, curtain-induced gloom. Every so often, the numbers changed- 5:33 p.m.- nearly dinner time but it wasn't like Hisoka was hungry- seeming more alive than the clock's owner, who was sitting perfectly still in a faded mauve armchair. He'd intended to read Mishima Yukio's _Confessions of a Mask _when he sat down- Gushoshin the Younger had recommended it last time he was at the library- and even went so far as to pick up the book and open it. That had been at precisely 3:17 pm. Since then, Kurosaki Hisoka had been able to take in exactly two sentences, but he'd stopped caring. Something far more pressing was on his mind.

It was 5:34 p.m., the fifth day since he'd gotten Watari to release him from the hospital, and he was no closer to figuring out what he was going to do about the brown-haired man who'd occupied the bed next to him. He'd purposefully left while Tsuzuki was still sleeping, selfishly wanting to avoid awkward questions. Needing to think, he'd beat it back to his apartment post-haste. It looked just the way he'd left it, with the exception of the refrigerator- the days he'd been gone had not been good to his leftover rice, which had developed a fine spotting of black mold. But it wasn't just that- he'd cleaned the bowl out in a daze, wondering why everything felt so much the same and yet so different. Going back to his apartment had been like stepping into a long-lost childhood memory for a few minutes, before he'd re-acclimated himself. It was strange- he'd gone on plenty of business trips before, and coming back always felt strange. Empty. Like he'd been full for days and suddenly found himself starving.

_It's Tsuzuki,_ he'd finally realized, when his partner had come in one day to take care of him when he'd collapsed. _I'm getting used to having him around, and it's strange to just be alone with my thoughts again. I'd better work on my shielding..._

But that had been months ago, and he'd finally realized that it wasn't just acclimation that was bothering him. It was- shit. It was disgusting. He couldn't even think about it. Gross. Gross! But sometimes he couldn't help it. The second night in the ward, he'd thought about it. Tsuzuki had been sleeping peacefully for once, while Hisoka was overcome with a nasty bout of insomnia. Turning over in bed for the thousandth time, he'd come to look- accidentally! of course... at his partner. The moonlight that was shining through the window illuminated the already handsome, angular visage, relaxed but not quite- never completely- untroubled. People never looked completely smooth when they slept, Hisoka thought. Distracted, lost in their world of dreams, perhaps; but he'd never seen the sort of blissful tranquility that writers liked to describe.

Still, once he'd peeked (_accidentally!)_, he couldn't stop looking. The vulnerability of the moment was rather frightening- he could feel the hint of a worried knot at the bottom of his stomach, warning him of the embarrassment that would follow if his partner were to wake up suddenly and catch him staring, but he pulled the covers up over his chin and ignored it. Eyes shadowed by the blanket, he gazed across the expanse between the beds. Tsuzuki was sprawled across the bed, coverlet pulled just over his waist; his gangly limbs hung everywhere, and Hisoka's eyes were automatically drawn to the planes of his chest where his sleep-shirt had fallen open. He swallowed. Tsuzuki was- he was- his mouth was dry. When did it get so hot?

_Oh._

He was so disgusting. Hisoka rolled over firmly and faced the other direction, flushing even deeper in embarrassment. This was wrong, he didn't- he wasn't like that. He wouldn't want to do that to someone.

_But you just did, _his mind reminded him traitorously. _Damn it. _Painfully aware of his own heat and sensitivity, he trained his gaze on a swath of paint on the far wall. What was wrong with him? Tsuzuki was a _man_, had _just tried to kill himself, _and here he was thinking about- things- was it Muraki? Had- what he'd done- messed him up, somehow? He'd read about it- sometimes when things like _that _happened to people, those people turned out just the same.

_No. _He wasn't like that, he told himself. He'd never be like _that. _He needed time to think... pulling his knees up to his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut. Sick, that's what he was. He'd just have to remember not to do that again. He'd had years to learn to suppress his empathy- surely this wouldn't be as hard? He couldn't think of anything else to do. He might not be known for his tact, but he wasn't that kind of person. He couldn't let himself be. So he wouldn't. It would have to work. Wouldn't it?

..._Wouldn't it?_

It was 5:43 p.m., ten minutes darker than before, and Kurosaki Hisoka had put the book aside, not even bothering with the pretense.

The problem, he supposed, was that he was just too damned selfish to leave. It would be easy- just put in a request for a transfer, get himself stationed somewhere where he'd never have to see Tsuzuki, never have to worry about the disgusting things his mind did without his permission. But he knew as soon as the thought crossed his mind that he couldn't. No. He... he _loved _his partner, in a completely innocent way, and he could just be near him as a _partner, _maybe even as a... a _friend. _That would be fine. _Besides- _and this thought was a sharp, sobering one that cut straight through the depressing fog of his other ones like a steak knife through oversoftened butter- _Leaving like that would be awful for Tsuzuki. You may have screwed up, but he _cares _about you, doesn't he? And knowing that you care about him, that's what made him come back. It's not like it's all bad. Just... _that. _That's a problem. But mostly, it's not bad. Good, even. It's good._

_ (Sick freak.)_

_ So,_ he told himself firmly, hugging his knees to his chest, _it'll just have to be suppressed. That's all. Get rid of the bad part. It's not like this is _you, _anyway. You'll just have to do that, and Tsuzuki doesn't ever have to know._

The thought was comforting. Hisoka sat there for another few minutes, staring at nothing, concentrating on driving that thought into his brain. _You're not a sick freak. Just get rid of this, and it'll be fine. _Then he got up and went into the kitchen to make himself tea. Cheap _sencha_, nothing special. Kurosaki Rui had been terribly partial to the expensive _Gyokuro_, but even on the occasions when her son was allowed to have it, he had never liked the taste. He stared pensively into the steam that curled up from the kettle, cupping a hand over it to feel the fleeting warmth; large though his apartment was, the downside was that it had always been rather cold. He heard the phone erupt in a shrill ring from the other room, jumped, and ignored it. It continued to ring, then stopped, then rang again, and finally Hisoka walked into the other room to answer, feeling a bit guilty. If anyone had been trying to reach him, he hadn't been answering the phone at all. Tsuzuki had said that could be worrisome.

"Hello?"

"Kurosaki-kun!"

"Watari-san?" Hisoka glanced sideways.

"Indeed! Nice of you to answer, _finally_." The scientist's voice came in, clear and far too loud. Luckily, the phone's volume could be adjusted. "I was just calling to check up on my uncooperative patient."

Said patient frowned in annoyance. "I'm fine."

"No fevers? Indigestion? Dizziness?"

"No." The junior shinigami scowled at the phone, never appreciative of unasked-for incursions into his own affairs.

"Good." Watari proclaimed, cheerfully oblivious to Hisoka's irritation. "Tsuzuki's doing well, too."

"Yeah?" Hisoka suddenly found himself enamored with the whitewash on the wall, flushing.

"Yup. I'm planning to release him tomorrow morning. He was asking after you."

"Really?" It was lame, but the best he could manage. In the other room, the teakettle began whistling. Hisoka got up and walked back to grab it, squeezing the phone between his shoulder and ear as he poured the boiling water into a cup and added a tea bag. No sugar. He couldn't stomach much sweetness.

"Yes, he was," Watari continued. Then he added significantly, "I hope you're feeling up to taking visitors."

Hisoka nodded reluctantly, then realized Watari couldn't see him. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He could almost see the scientist narrowing his eyes at him, trying to see through the phone to decipher the thought process behind Hisoka's vague reply. But after a moment, Watari seemed to let it go. "That's good, Kurosaki-kun. I'll tell him you're answering your phone now, hmm?"

"Well, I am." The younger shinigami stared at the counter, tracing little specks in the granite. He had the feeling that Watari was scolding him for his disappearing act, though he wasn't sure how much else he could have done. He couldn't just sit there with those thoughts.

"All right, then." Watari's voice made the smooth transition from inquisitively chiding to light and professional. "I'll see you later then, Kurosaki-kun."

"You too."

Hisoka stared at the phone for a moment. Then he put it down, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a sip of tea. Too early- it burned going down his throat.

* * *

He'd wound up eating, eventually. Just rice. When he'd come to Meifu, he hadn't known how to cook at all; not even how to boil water. His parents- or more accurately, his father, for his mother had never given up hope that a new, less freakish pregnancy would come along and absolve them of the need to keep Hisoka around- had made sure he was book-learned, but when it came to domestics... he just didn't know. The maids had always taken care of such things. So it was that for his first few months on the job, he'd eaten every meal in the overpriced Shokan-ka cafeteria, sacrificing a good chunk of those early paychecks and, as a result, foregoing amenities like a new pair of shoes once holes had been worn in the toes of his right ones. Since then, with Tsuzuki's poor cooking the ironic impetus- he needed _some_ way to escape his partner's curry rice coated in mint leaves, cinnamon, and whole nutmegs- he'd taught himself to follow recipes, and the amount of money wasted had gone down significantly.

As he ate, he thought about- what else?- ways to get rid of _it, _as he'd taken to calling the thoughts. The problem was that he _knew _about getting rid of thoughts; that is, he knew how hard it was, and how he'd never succeeded before. Not for a lack of trying; for years of his childhood, attempts at ridding himself of his empathy had loomed ominously, like the towering shadow of an infuriated parent in his mind. If the issue was will or motivation, he'd had plenty, stabbing needles of resentment and settled despair running through his respiratory system with every breath he took of that over-lacquered, stiffly affluent atmosphere. And without even that... there was simply no chance. He could _try_ concentration, but... it hadn't worked the first time.

Hisoka sighed, dropped his head onto one hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. _Instruction manuals... _

A shield. Wakaba had helped him with that when he'd first arrived, to give him more control over the empathy. Would that still _work _if it was your own thoughts you were trying to block?

He pulled his head up and scraped his hands through his hair, bringing them to rest clasping the back of his neck. _Actually, that might work. _Surely there was _something _that could block out his own thoughts, right? And if there was, Watari would probably know where to find it... and Wakaba might know how to _do _it, he didn't see how the topic wouldn't have come up at _some_ point during her tenure. In their line of work, with all its demonic possessions and bad memories, people had to have reasons to block off parts of their own mind. Sure, there hadn't been any way but the soul-splitter to get Sargatanus out of Tsuzuki, but that was different. That was an entire entity inside him. This was just one... perverted... _inclination_.

Outside, the sun had set entirely. The bare apartment aquired a queer starkly lonely quality with the lights on, all shadows thrown across whitewash that was yellow under the low-wattage bulbs. It was impossible to tell where all of them came from, fuzzy undefined shapes that must have been the result of some light angled awkwardly towards a fold in the couch covers; still and unidentifiable on the far wall, next to the open window. Hisoka got up to close the blinds, frowning at his own skinny reflection in the cold glass. There was something unnerving about the way he couldn't see out of a glass window at night when he was inside, but from without, all activities were starkly visible in more detail than they ever were in daytime. Anyone could be looking right in, and he wouldn't be able to see. Unless they had their nose pressed right up against the glass. And he did _not _want that.

He walked back to the kitchen after that, closing the curtains above the sink before turning on the faucet to wash his teacup. _So. _Maybe Wakaba knew. He'd ask her, next time he saw her at work.

He woke up the next morning, and realized the problem. Staring befuddled into the ceiling's blank grey expanse, he recalled his conversation with Watari:

_"Release him tomorrow morning... I hope you're feeling up to taking visitors."_

"Damn." He flopped over and took a look at his clock- 6:27 a.m.- what _time _ tomorrow morning had the man meant, anyway? "Crap." He wasn't even supposed to be in the office for another week, and his stomach flipped at the thought of making an obviously special trip to seek out his coworker for information of this sort. And, just his luck, the library was still closed for repairs after Mariko and Suzaku's rampage. But he had to get it somehow-

Then his eyes alighted on the old phonebook.

Hisoka didn't know the apartment's last renter, but he assumed they'd worked in a sector that included Hokuriku, because they'd left behind a recent Kanazawa business directory that Hisoka had never bothered to get rid of. It was on top of the refrigerator, covered in a fine layer of dust which made Hisoka sneeze as he pulled it down and flipped to the bookstores. Would any of them be open at this hour? Probably not, he supposed, though Tsuzuki would most likely get up late too- he could assume to have the morning to himself, at least. They wouldn't have books about shielding, but maybe there was a drug of some sorts- they wouldn't work if this was the result of residual magic from Muraki's curse, but if it was purely psychological, there had to be something. So he picked up the phone and dialed the number of the first familiar-sounding store he'd come to. He had no idea how they'd managed to get phone service between Chijou and Meifu, but it was damned convenient.

"Thank you for calling Books Kinokuniya. Our offices are closed at this time. For our hours and locations, please press 1..."

_(Beep.)_

"Thank you. Our hours are 8:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m., Monday through Sunday. Our locations in the Ishikawa prefecture are as follows..."

_(Click.)_

_So. Well. _Hisoka flopped down in a chair and studied the wood grain of the table, belatedly bleary. That was that, then, and this way, he might not even have to tell anyone. He'd get a book to help him figure out how to deal with this- and then he'd call Tsuzuki, because there was no doubt in his mind that the man _would_ want to hear from him. Just... hopefully, the man wouldn't actually come over until Hisoka'd had a chance to work through some of it, but knowing him...

The junior shinigami frowned and stalked off to take a shower. If that happened... well. He'd just have to do his best to keep from thinking about things like _that. _At least Tsuzuki wasn't an empath.

The trip turned out to be more embarassing than Hisoka had anticipated. He blinked down to Kanazawa at exactly 9:01, after waking up at 6:30 as if he were going in to work, and skulked through Kinokuniya in order to look up "abnormal sexuality" (118 titles), "healthy relationships" (1,134 titles, most of which were either diet cookbooks or dubious-looking guides on how to keep a man), and "sexual pathology" (3 titles). Then he walked to the section that seemed most promising, struggling to look nonchalant, and was promptly assaulted by a veritable wall of bright pink and scantily clad women. It was gross. Blushing furiously, he tried to take a top-down stock of the shelves while assuming his best "I'm A College Student, and These Are All Class-Related" look. Not that there were many reasons Hisoka-the-Pretend-College-Student would _need_ to look at anything like Miiko Haruna's _Love + Control, _or _Lolita Confinement Lesbian, _or _World's Horniest Schoolgirl: She was cursed by a demon and now everyone in the school wants to fuck her!. _

Hisoka jerked his head rather theatrically away, hurrying to the other side of the stack while trying to look like he was just browsing for _other things- _not all this... whatever it was. What was it doing there, anyway? He was pretty sure he'd never even heard some of the words involved. And just _what _the point was, he'd never understand. Or- well- a blush was spreading across a good portion of his face. People enjoyed this, and they weren't all sick. Someone had to carry on the human race, after all. It felt good, he guessed. But he didn't have any reference points, unless you counted- he felt sick. That was different. He shouldn't think about _that, _trying to learn about it; so much he knew, at least. It hadn't been normal.

And at this rate he wasn't going to get anything done, and just standing there twitching made him feel acutely that he was looking stupider by the minute. Hisoka moved back to the shelves, trying to project an aura of nonchalant confidence. He didn't think it worked, but on the bright side, nobody was around to see him examining these titles. He quickly found that the books closer to the bottom of the shelf seemed more promising- _Sexuality and the Brain: Physiology and Pathology of the Neural Pleasure Centers, _perhaps, or _A Cultural History of Sexuality._ Though those might not be... specific enough. But this, an academic-looking tome with plain unquestionable black covers entitled _Sexual Pathology: Diagnosis and Treatment _looked like it could be exactly what he was looking for. Or the fat volume simply called _Human Sexuality, _which according to the table of contents covered everything he could have thought of and then some_. _Eventually, he just snatched up everything and hurried to the checkout, where the bored-looking salesgirl mercifully made no comment as she rang up his purchases and placed them in a tactfully opaque layer of two plastic bags.

"That'll be 36,500 yen."

...Well, he hadn't been planning to do anything that month anyway.

He'd blinked back to Meifu and was hurrying back to his apartment when his luck ran out. He felt the man before he saw him, the sophomoric shinigami standing anxiously in front of his door, wondering (while refusing to acknowledge his own worry) whether Hisoka had just gone out, or if he was refusing to answer the door...

_Quit it, _Hisoka thought furiously, feeling his own heart quicken in anxiety that wasn't entirely a result of the empathy. His knuckles tightened on the bag, angling it to hide in part behind one of his legs. Then he drew in a breath, and rounded the corner.

"Hisoka!"

"Tsuzuki?" He came to a stop, staring dumbly at the other man. The bag seemed to swell to bursting behind his back, heavy and pregnant with potential embarrassment. His face was hot.

"Um. Yeah." His partner laughed sheepishly, raking one fine-boned hand through his hair. He turned a hopeful gaze on Hisoka. "Watari let me out today."

There was nothing Hisoka could think of to say, looking away shamefacedly. "Oh?" _Stop that, _he scolded himself, steeling his gaze and moving it back to Tsuzuki.

"Yeah..." Hisoka felt Tsuzuki's sense of awkwardness, a wave of questions threatening at the back of his mind. His partner certainly didn't take long to question his own worth- but Hisoka knew that already, didn't he? It had been made brutally clear last week. "I thought I might come and see you. Are you all right, Hisoka?"

"Fine," he answered automatically. This was all so very... bland, he realized. Bland, and so awkward after Kyoto. It didn't seem right, but he wasn't sure what _would _be, or how to make it that way. And he was still acutely conscious of the incriminating bag at his right side. Tsuzuki didn't seem to have noticed it yet... "Do you want to... come in, or something?" He gestured abortively with the other hand.

"Sure." Tsuzuki shrugged, perking up immediately as a smile spread briefly across his face. "Have you had breakfast? There's this café downside in Nagasaki if you haven't- it's kinda small, but they serve this crépe that looks absolutely excellent-"

"I thought I invited you _in, _not _out,_" he muttered, rolling his eyes, but grateful for the hint of their usual banter. Tsuzuki blinked.

"What?"

"Nothing," Hisoka said, louder, eyeing the door. "I'll have to go inside to, er, grab my wallet. Can you wait a minute?"

His partner grinned. "So we can go out?"

_Sigh. _He unlocked the door and turned in the doorway. "It's all right, but only if you pay for your own food. I am _definitely _not paying the tab on this one."

A pout, not serious. "Aw, Hisoka-a!"

"You can deal. I'll be back in a sec." Hisoka stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him. He rarely let people into his apartment- Tsuzuki was the only one- but that was no reason not to find the best hiding place he could for his recent purchases. Unfortunately, looking around, he realized he had few other possessions to help in concealing them. Stuffed in the closet? There wasn't much there in the first place. Behind the fridge? Not enough room, and between the fridge and the counter would be too obvious. Under the bed? Well...

So he put his purchases in an old cardboard box, placed the Kanazawa business directory on top of them, and shoved the whole thing against the wall under his bed, tugging the covers sideways to prevent it from being readily visible from any part of the room. Not that he could think of any _reason_ why anyone would be on his bedroom floor, looking sideways (unless they were doing something completely unacceptable, and he wasn't going to think about that), but why risk it?

"Sorry," he said as he walked back outside, though Tsuzuki wasn't feeling especially impatient. Of course, he hadn't really needed to grab his wallet. It had been in his pocket the whole time. "Shall we go?"

"'Course!" Tsuzuki answered cheerfully, waiting for him to catch up before moving on.

* * *

In hindsight, Hisoka would decide that going out with Tsuzuki without a definite plan of Things To Say had been a bad idea. Worse in light of the paranoia that had begun eating him almost as soon as they'd left his flat- an intense, gut-churning, face-reddening terror that his secret would be betrayed in some small quirk of his mannerisms, some tiny Freudian slip in his speech. Attempting to make small talk on the way to the café was torment, seeming to stretch the time interminably far beyond its actual value.

It took around twenty minutes, walking and riding Nagasaki's _chin-chin densha,_ for the two to make their way to Inta-Kohii- a tiny, international coffee shop nestled comically between two office buildings of much larger stature. Strings of holiday lights hung in the huge front windows, unlit; behind them, one could see a space simply decorated in salmon pink, with a few purple-mountained landscapes on the walls and a screenprint of a _sakura _tree covering a good three and a half square feet of the wall behind the counter. Spread out on a long, low shelf beneath the latter were a multitude of large glass jars containing different types of coffee beans; the owner was in the process of scooping some of these into a huge metal roaster for another pair of customers when the two Shinigami walked in the door.

"Irasshaimase!" he called to them with a smile. He was a friendly-looking, open-faced man in his fifties or sixties.

"Black coffee, please. No sugar," Hisoka requested briskly once they got up to the counter.

Tsuzuki wrinkled his nose. "Ew, Hisoka. So bitter." To the owner, he continued, "I'll have a cinnamon latte and a slice of Death by Chocolate." Hisoka rolled his eyes.

"It's a good thing your arteries can't quit on you, or you'd be dead."

"I already am," Tsuzuki reminded him, once they'd moved safely away from the counter to a table near the back. It occurred to Hisoka that perhaps the remark had been a bit tactless, but Tsuzuki didn't seem to have noticed it. The junior shinigami snorted, in forced amusement or exasperation at the overused Shinigami humor, he wasn't sure. Outside, the historical center of Japan's international trade was moving at a rapid clip. A creaky green bus rattled past, and across the street, a young-ish looking man scrambled after the contents of a dropped folder full of papers. Inside, it was loudly quiet. Hisoka didn't need to hear the conversation to know that the woman behind him was grieving and ashamed; he didn't want to hear the details of her third miscarriage, but hear he could. So, he suspected, could everyone else, if they so chose. It was disconcerting. He frowned at the tabletop, then plucked one of the sugar packets out of the little brown jar on the left and began fiddling with it.

"Hisoka..." Tsuzuki broke him out of his reverie. "You okay?"

He flushed. "I'm fine."

"You've been awfully quiet." _Did something happen? What's he thinking? _Tsuzuki was leaning his head on his entwined fingers, appraising him from across the table. Hisoka found himself wanting to tremble under the weight of that gaze. He didn't quantify himself as being inclined to verbosity; nor was he good with words. But there was something comfortable about Tsuzuki that made him want to... say things. Because Tsuzuki, well, Tsuzuki... he noticed, and he didn't begrudge, however stupid the remark might have been. In fact, Tsuzuki seemed to expect a bit of stupidity, giving it himself in return. The only thing his partner didn't like was being ignored, which Hisoka was forcefully and guiltily reminded of when he didn't respond.

"Hisoka..." The man seemed to swallow apprehensively. "Did you... are you... regretting it, what you said?"

He didn't assume himself to be any great intellect, but he'd have to have been brain-dead to not catch the thoughts Tsuzuki was blaring and realize what he meant. He remembered choking in flames, sobbing out words that had been there for he didn't know how long- that morning- something had been right about what he said in Kyoto, he'd felt it in himself, in Tsuzuki, and he wasn't doing it right anymore. He wasn't handling this well, and he had no-one to blame but himself. He shook his head quickly.

"No! No..." The sugar packet burst in his hands, spilling white crystals that would quickly turn sticky in the heat of his palms. Tsuzuki wordlessly handed him a napkin, which did little for wiping the mess off his fingers. "I meant it," he stuttered, trying to answer the question that was once again throbbing in his vulnurable partner's core. "I've been... thinking. It's not your fault. I... Tsuzuki, there are things about me, I don't..." He felt the girl at the counter surrepetitiously turning to look; he imagined that his voice was loud enough to carry to every ear in the café, and it probably was. Nor was Tsuzuki's concern alleviated, still being directed towards him, albeit in a different way.

"Are you all right?" The man was using his tempering voice, the one he used on terrified souls to get them to trust him, trying to catch Hisoka's eye. A certain part of him found it maddening that his partner felt the need to use those conciliatory gestures on him, but... they worked. And maybe that was even more maddening.

He grimaced and glared at his hands. The mess wasn't coming off. "I'm fine. Stop worrying about me."

Tsuzuki was not convinced in the slightest. "What have you been thinking about? What things about you?"

"I..." He glanced towards the door, wanting to leave, wanting to curl in on himself and escape. A young college-age man sitting by the door got up and left, leaving behind a coffee cup and newspaper. The young woman and her mother sitting behind him weren't paying attention, still absorbed in the younger woman's grief. The girl working the counter had taken a seat and was reading a book, but she could _hear. _What if... _that... _turned out to be like the empathy, and he couldn't get rid of it?

He didn't know what he'd do then. He couldn't let himself become like Muraki.

"Hisoka?"

Silently, he shook his head. He covered his mouth, then swiped harder at the crystals that were sticking to his palms.

"Hisoka," Tsuzuki repeated, worry swelling luminously across the table between them. He got up, wanting to ask again, but all he said was, "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up." And then Hisoka was allowing his partner to shepherd him from the table and into the restroom, where Tsuzuki wet a cheap brown paper hand-towel and began running it gently over Hisoka's hands. His touch was soft, and so Hisoka let him continue where he'd normally have slapped the other man away, comfortable in spite of the closeness that normally would have been suffocating as they stood by the sink. Tsuzuki smelled clean, like laundry soap, tinged with that other smell that was uniquely _Tsuzuki _whose components he couldn't identify.

"You know..." his partner said eventually, "You can talk about it, if something's wrong."

"Same to you." Hisoka glanced at the side of his partner's head in the mirror. Tsuzuki frowned.

"That's not fair. You can't tell me to talk, if you won't." Hisoka was ironically reminded of the day they'd been out walking in Kyoto, when Tsuzuki had refused to talk- and he still wasn't talking now, was he?

Hisoka chose not to mention it. The sugar crystals were gone, but his partner's fine-boned hands lingered, large and warm on his own cold, wet fingers. His breath hitched.

"Tsuzuki, I... it's nothing. Really." He turned a pleading gaze on the other man, but stopped, staring at Tsuzuki's black-clad shoulder before he could look him in the eye.

"_Hisoka."_ The intensity of Tsuzuki's gaze was nearly palpable, as was his frustration, bubbling in the air. It had been a bad idea to let this subject come up in the first place, Hisoka realized. Unless he was really going to lose his mind, Tsuzuki could never know about what was lurking in the depths of his diseased heart. And if he couldn't get rid of it, what then- he'd have to leave, though everything in him cried against it. He'd have to tell Watari, ask the doctor to have him committed before he could hurt anyone, and- he remembered the basement, and wondered if it would've been better if he'd just stayed there. He suppressed a shudder at the thought- _Please no._

"Fine." Tsuzuki's demeanor changed abruptly; he turned away from Hisoka, threw the paper towel into the narrow metal trash can, and remained standing there, facing the wall. "I won't keep trying to make you talk if you don't want to." He turned around, with an effort. "Just... look, I hope you get this sorted out, okay? If you wanna talk, you know my number."

Hisoka bit his lip and stared at his feet, wondering how he could want so much to melt into the ground when he knew there was nothing else he could have done. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"No, it's fine," His partner answered, smiling with an effort. "Really. We'll talk more later, okay?"

It wasn't how he'd liked things to go, but Hisoka recognized the lost cause. "Okay."

Tsuzuki paused for an awkward second in which Hisoka felt his partner wondering whether or not to hug him. Finally, the older man reached out and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder before turning and walking out, leaving him standing there in front of the paper towel dispenser in the men's restroom. He followed after a moment, jamming his suddenly cold hands deep in his pockets and feeling empty in ways that had nothing to do with a lack of food.


End file.
